Sales and the Art of Persuasion | STVZ.808

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The UCSC Silicon Valley Extension program taught through Virtanza is the only real-world, practical art of persuasion class that is linked directly to employers. Students explore 18 professional sales and adjacent roles and learn sales skill applications through real-world employer role-play simulations. Students will learn the Virtanza 4-step sales process: (1) research, (2) prospecting, (3) needs assessment, and (4) proposal/close. Students also learn networking and communication skills to become successful in a professional sales role and adjacent roles. Further, students will learn to assess their sales aptitude, competencies, and strengths to position their skills effectively for the employment market. They are placed on a career pathway toward high-level roles in sales consulting, adjacent sales roles (such as sales operations, recruiting, legal, business management, project management, fundraising, admissions), sales management, and executive sales.

The Virtanza Sales Process is designed to make you successful in broad-based, consultative sales of products and services.

The course helps you strengthen:

• Consultative selling skills;
• Value selling skills; and
• Negotiation skills: asking for the right-sized investment and getting it.

Learning Outcomes

• Demonstrate knowledge of the Virtanza sales method.
• Utilize customer networking tools, including LinkedIn, Groove, Google, website data, and social media to determine best prospects and insights about customers and potential opportunities, learning the synergistic impact of sales enablement tools.
• Analyze pertinent customer needs and create the appropriate solution and persuasive presentation aligned with customer needs, goals, and objectives.
• Communicate networking and sales competencies as they relate to their career pathway.

Prerequisites

None.

Skill & Technical Requirements

Technical Requirements

• Reliable high-speed internet access for live-online meetings, videos, and audio through headphones or speakers.
• Microsoft Office, Google Docs, OpenOffice, or other compatible word processing software.
• PowerPoint and Word for presentations.
• Zoom will also be required to access the live-online or coaching sessions.
• Built-in or USB plug-in web camera and speakers.

Skill Requirements

• Use a web camera
• Copy and paste functions
• Attach documents
• Use upload features in the LMS
• Upload and view documents in PDF format. (You may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader to open PDF files. Apple OS X Preview application allows you to open PDFs.